The present invention relates to automated animal feed systems, and in particular to a low profile conveyor feeder.
Multi-tier animal confinement systems, such as those used for poultry and disclosed in Big Dutchman brochure PROFIT-TIER Publication No. SL-179-65, which is hereby incorporated by reference, are presently used quite extensively by commercial growers. In such systems, it is advantageous to retain a maximum number of birds in a given space, so as to improve efficiency of the operation, and reduce the associated costs on a per bird basis.
One means to achieve operational efficiency is to provide four batteries or tiers of cages. However, because of the height of the conveyor feed units, the cage tiers cannot be stacked closely together, thereby resulting in additional material costs, and increasing the building size required to house the system. Although the conveyor feeders can be staggered to reduce the overall height of the system, as shown by the corner hoppers in the Big Dutchman PROFIT-TIER brochure noted above, this arrangement increases the total length of the system. Further, where a substantial offset is required, there may be insufficient room to permit each feeder to be located at a corner of the conveyor, thereby requiring two different styles of conveyor feeders for the same system. Hence, staggered corner feeder arrangements are generally considered less desirable than systems wherein the feeders are located at one corner of the conveyors, and are disposed in a generally vertically aligned configuration.
The problems encountered in stacking corner hoppers vertical one above the other without any offset in order to condense the size of the entire system, is that the height of the hoppers is such that in order to produce a low profile multi-tier poultry cage system, the hoppers would be stacked so closely together in vertical alignment that is would be virtually impossible to drop the feed into the hoppers from the overhead conveyor. Further, most corner feed hoppers have drive motors mounted on the upper surface of the outlet side of the housing to achieve a reasonably direct drive line to the feed chain drive sprocket which also increases the vertical profile of the entire system. To my knowledge, no one has conceived of any arrangement or construction or corner hoppers whereby the hoppers can be located one on top of the other with little vertical space therebetween so as to reduce the profile of the entire system.